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Improved air–sea flux algorithms in an ocean–atmosphere coupled model for simulation of global ocean SST and its tropical Pacific variability

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Abstract

A revised algorithm for air–sea exchange parameterization of momentum, sensible and latent heat flux improves the climate simulation of the global distribution of sea surface temperature (SST) and tropical Pacific variability of SST. Based upon an analysis of studies from field programs, we apply the revised algorithm with new expressions for surface momentum and scalar roughness length dependent on 10-m winds in neutral condition, and evaluate them in the ocean–atmosphere coupled model of the Australian Community Climate and Earth-System Simulator. The revised algorithm improves simulations for mean global SST distribution, demonstrated with Pearson’s correlation indices showing corrections to a net fraction of 28 % over the global oceans. Being focused on the tropical Pacific, the algorithm eases the tropical SST cold tongue bias, and improves predictability of ENSO variability with better representations of the standard deviation of the Nino-3.4 index, especially the skewness of the index for nonlinearity of ENSO variability. Bjerknes and thermodynamical feedbacks are applied to understand the effects of the revised algorithm on the predictability of the Nino indices.

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Notes

  1. Code version 7.3.

  2. The ACCESS ocean model, ACCESS–OM, is a global coupled ocean and sea ice model consisting of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Modular Ocean Model (GFDL MOM4) (Griffies 2007), the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) sea ice model CICE4 (Hunke and Lipscomb 2010), a data atmospheric model, and the OASIS3.2-5 coupler.

  3. z0s is used for both the sensible and latent heat fluxes.

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Acknowledgments

Yimin Ma benefited from discussions with Drs. Arian Lock and John Edwards of the UK MetOffice during the early stage of this study, and is grateful for constructive suggestions by an anonymous reviewer. The study is supported by the ACCESS model development project of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, and by the Australian Climate Change Science Program (an Australian Government initiative). Drs. Noel Davidson, Vaughan Barras and Savin Chand reviewed the manuscript and made comments that improved the manuscript.

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  1. Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR), A Partnership Between CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne, GPO Box 1289, Melbourne, 3001, Australia

    Yimin Ma, Xiaobing Zhou, Daohua Bi, Zhian Sun & Anthony C. Hirst

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  1. Yimin Ma
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  2. Xiaobing Zhou
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  3. Daohua Bi
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Correspondence to Yimin Ma.

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Ma, Y., Zhou, X., Bi, D. et al. Improved air–sea flux algorithms in an ocean–atmosphere coupled model for simulation of global ocean SST and its tropical Pacific variability. Clim Dyn 44, 1473–1485 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2281-7

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